1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to an imaging unit having an imaging element and an optical member and to an imaging system.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, electronic imaging systems corresponding to various types have appeared on the market, like digital cameras and digital video cameras, as well as portable telephones having imaging functions and endoscope systems for observing insides of organs of subjects. Of these, an endoscope system includes: an endoscope apparatus having an imaging unit that captures an image of inside of an organ of a subject; and a control unit that controls this endoscope apparatus. The imaging unit is built-in, with an imaging element mounted on a distal end portion of an elongated insertion tool having flexibility. By inserting this insertion tool inside a body cavity, observation or the like of a site to be tested becomes possible.
The imaging unit has the imaging element such as a CCD image sensor or a CMOS image sensor mounted thereon, forms an optical image of the subject on a light receiving unit of the imaging element by an optical system such as a lens, and performs a photoelectric conversion process on an image signal of this optical image to thereby capture image data of the subject.
In recent years, for smooth diagnosis and treatment, increase in definition of in-vivo images is demanded. Under such situations, in order to transmit an image signal having a large amount of information corresponding to the increase in definition, an endoscope system has been proposed, which converts an electric signal into an optical signal, and transmits this converted optical signal to a signal processing apparatus by using an optical fiber cable (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-260066).